“The engine master tells and it is for us to do,” said the big engineer. “Though Urgar’s mind is full of questions. This grinding eats too many moments. Why not patch first and then upgrade when all is well, yes?”

  Why not indeed? What the hell was Ra-Havreii doing? This was a damned Red Alert. Titanwas a big metal bucket rolling in the dark right now-slow, stupid, defenseless. This was no time for anybody’s eccentricities.

  Then Troi’s hand was on her arm, tugging her gently away from the scene.

  “I’ll deal with Ra-Havreii,” she said softly, having obviously zeroed in on the inspiration for Vale’s current emotional turmoil. “Can you get this place under control?”

  Vale nodded curtly. Troi was back in the lift an instant later, her mission set. Vale took a breath, turned back to the theater of pandemonium.

  “Attention,” she said, shouting to be heard over the cacophony of voices. After her third try and smacking a spanner against the bulkhead, they stopped and looked her way. “All hands are to belay every order that doesn’t include getting this ship back online ASAP. If it’s patchable, patch it. No unnecessary swaps, no upgrades that aren’t one hundred percent required. Understood?”

  It was. From their faces she could tell that some of them were even relieved to be given an order they could comprehend. Ra-Havreii was definitely off the map this time.

  “We’ll need a separate team in each of the nacelle conduits,” said Xin Ra-Havreii to a very tense-looking Ensign Rossini. The latter was doing his best to keep pace with the Efrosian’s longer strides while simultaneously entering the senior officer’s orders into his padd. “There won’t be time to replace the flow couplings once the core is back online.”

  He would have gone on-there was a lot more to do, more than anyone knew-but he found himself struck speechless by the dark cloud hovering near his quarters.

  “That will be all for now, Ensign,” he said, dismissing the grateful Rossini without a glance. “Well, Counselor Troi, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “This isn’t a social call, Doctor,” said Troi in a glacial tone. “Your conduct has become too erratic to ignore.”

  “Ah,” said Ra-Havreii, managing what Troi supposed was meant to be a wry grin. “If we’re going to talk about me, might I suggest we do it inside my quarters?”

  “We’re in the middle of a Red Alert, Commander-” Troi began.

  “Precisely,” said the engineer as the doors to his quarters parted. “Let’s talk inside.”

  He was across the threshold before she could respond, and while his tone was upbeat, there was another emotion comet-trailing off him that raised her concerns even higher. Seeing little alternative, she followed him in.

  Ra-Havreii’s quarters were more Spartan than Troi expected. Contained in the three small rooms with their regulation-issue off-white walls were a regulation couch, regulation desk and chair, regulation dining table, and in the much-discussed Ra-Havreii sleeping area, a simple standard-issue bed.

   Titanhad been out of the dock for months. Ra-Havreii had been aboard nearly all that time, and yet he had not moved in. There was not one personal modification to his regulation personal space.

  Under the strictest conditions even a Vulcan could be expected to display an IDIC symbol or construct a meditation shrine. Xin Ra-Havreii, Titan’s most notorious hedonist, had nothing. That, coupled with the thick aura-what was that, guilt? melancholy?-that emanated from him, made the hackles on Troi’s neck stand at attention.

  “ Luna 80102, Second Model in D Minor,” said Ra-Havreii as he dropped into the chair. Immediately the room was filled with the sounds of a string sextet playing what sounded like a combination of Terran music-classical Japanese-and a Romulan lute chorus. For several moments Troi was fascinated in spite of herself. The melody was quite lovely, the interplay of sounds both delicate and somehow powerful, but a couple of discordant notes snapped her back to reality.

  Ra-Havreii hushed her first two attempts to engage him, seeming lost in the complex interplay of sounds.

  “Hm?” he said at last, coming back from wherever he’d been. “Did you say something, Counselor?”

  “You can’t continue this way, Xin,” said Troi. “You’re using your job to exorcise your personal demons.”

  “I am?”

  “I saw what was going on in engineering,” said Troi. “You were supposed to be getting Titanrunning properly again as quickly as possible. Instead, you had your people performing what looked to me like a complete overhaul.”

  “And by this you gleaned I was somehow working out feelings I’ve been sublimating about my past mistakes.” He paused to listen to a particularly complex refrain before going on. “Is that it?”

  “Close enough,” she said.

  “Let’s assume you’re right,” he said. “Isn’t it best to let the patient cure himself whenever possible?”

  “Sadly,” she said, “that’s not always how it works.”

  “I’m the engineer,” he said as the music swelled around them. “Shouldn’t I be telling you how things work?”

  There was another discordant note. Ra-Havreii cocked his head to one side, listening, as the note became a progression of jumbled sounds quite unlike the rest of the admittedly unusual piece.

  “Don’t joke,” she said, ignoring the noise.

  “Just a moment, Counselor,” said Ra-Havreii, clearly annoyed by her interruption. “Stop, resume playback at the beginning of the last phrase.”

  The music returned, its lilting melody permeating the room for a few seconds until the dischord reappeared. Again Ra-Havreii’s aspect hovered somewhere between aggravation and curiosity, and Troi was at a loss to find the line between them.

  Something was burning inside the engineer; that was obvious. She could feel his turmoil almost as acutely as she did her own, though, as usual, she couldn’t pinpoint the exact source. If this odd musical interlude was an attempt to soothe himself, it didn’t seem to be working.

  “I’d thought you’d agreed we would discuss any recurrence in your feelings about the Lunaincident,” said Troi eventually.

  “What do you mean by that, Counselor?” he asked.

  “You said the title of this piece was Luna, didn’t you?” she said. “And I know how serious threats to Titansometimes cause you to relive certain aspects of the Lunadisaster.”

  “Yes, well,” said Ra-Havreii, still seemingly a bit distracted. “I’m sure I will always carry some baggage from that…event.”

  “Don’t you think it might be helpful to work on putting that baggage away?”

  “There’s away, Madame Troi,” said Ra-Havreii as the music resumed its normal pleasant strains, “and there’s away. In either case, I assure you, I have myself, my baggage, and my demons well in hand.”

   Why do they always lie?thought Troi. They have to know that I’ll know.

  She could sense, despite his serene exterior, that he was hanging on to his composure by his fingernails. If anything, listening to this music seemed somehow to make matters worse.

  “There’s no need to put up a front with me, Xin,” said Troi, trying to navigate another way into the Efrosian’s psyche. “You know I can feel when you’re-”

  “Stop,” he said, rising. It was only when the music evaporated without returning that Troi realized he hadn’t meant her.

  She watched as he gathered up his padd, tapped in some commands, and rose to go. Red emergency lighting spilled in from the corridor beyond, casting the engineer’s sinuous frame into a stark black silhouette.

  “Are you coming, Counselor?”

  “Commander Vale has engineering under control, Xin,” she said. “I think we should get to the bottom of what’s happening with you.”

  “What’s happening, Madame Troi,” said Ra-Havreii, “is that I’ve just discovered precisely what knocked Titanout of warp and is currently running roughshod over her systems. I would like to inform the captain of my findings, as I’m sure he’d consider them to be of great interest. However, if you believe the ship and crew would be better served by my sitting here with you and discussing my feelings, I will be happy to oblige.”